Talk:Appearances in outside fictional universes
Confusing headers How does Muppets presented in fiction as "characters of a famous puppet act" compare to "real living characters"? I haven't seen the Soul Man (where Big Bird appears as himself) or West Wing (where Sesame Street Muppets as themselves) appearances, but in Rocky III (where Rocky is a guest on The Muppet Show) it would seem that Rocky appears on a variety show that's called The Muppet Show, but the internal logic is that it's just another variety show, and everybody accepts that the Muppets are a group of living creatures. It's kind of like everybody just accepts Walter as a real living being, and nobody notices that he looks like a puppet. So do we need that second header? -- Ken (talk) 05:02, March 4, 2013 (UTC) :I think it's worth keeping. In both the two TV shows mentioned, while there's nothing to suddenly "break" the reality of the characters or show the puppeteers, they are acknowledged *as* puppets and presented as the stars of Sesame Street, the long-running children's show, a fictional series. Feel free to reword if you like, but it is different from the characters appearing as if they were just a neighbor down the street or even as a "real" celebrity not on a fictional show. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 07:38, March 4, 2013 (UTC) ::I guess "puppet act" is throwing me, because that sounds like we know they're really puppets being performed by people you can't see. I'm thinking that the Rocky appearance on The Muppet Show is like when John Denver's character is on The Dinah Shore Show in Oh, God! It's a case where a character in a movie appears on a TV show that was then in production in real life, but that appearance never actually happened. It just gets complicated, because they used Sylvester Stallone's episode as if Rocky Balboa appeared on it. Anybody else have any thoughts? -- Ken (talk) 04:10, March 5, 2013 (UTC) :::Would it work better if we just changed it to "puppet troupe" or "famous entertainers who are acknowledged as puppets"? (I don't know enough about the Rocky example, which is kind of a cheat anyway since while they changed the voiceover it's otherwise the same footage, so not that far from the clip used in An American Werewolf in London, but I can see why it's listed here). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 05:25, March 5, 2013 (UTC) ::::I'm not sure how to make the headings less confusing. But basically Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium takes place in a world where there is an actual talking frog named Kermit (Kermit is a real living being in that world, just as he is in The Muppet Movie or Muppet Show). The other characters in the scene don't see Steve Whitmire manipulating a puppet, they see a real frog walking into their store. It's a fantasy world where the character is presented as a "real" living being. ::::By contrast, The West Wing does not take place in a world where there are actual 6-foot-tall talking birds and furry monsters (Big Bird is just a fictional puppet character from a TV show, just like he is in real life). We may not see Carroll Spinney or the other puppeteers on the show, but the Muppets on The West Wing are fictional puppet characters, not real living beings. I don't think the Rocky films take place in a fantasy world where there are talking frogs and singing pigs either; they take place in a world (like the real world) where there was a famous syndicated variety show staring Jim Henson's puppets (even if we don't see Jim Henson and the other performers). -- Brad D. (talk) 05:39, March 5, 2013 (UTC) :::::(posted before Brad) Yeah, I was afraid of making it clunky. Maybe we should just leave it. Anyway, the Rocky footage is here. It's during a montage of all the stuff Rocky is doing now that he's famous. The Muppet Show stuff is at 5:27. -- Ken (talk) 05:48, March 5, 2013 (UTC) :::::(posted after Brad) Yeah, now that you put it that way, in this case, it doesn't matter if they're real or not for Rocky. We just accept that Rocky was so famous, that he was asked to be on The Muppet Show, like other celebrities were in the 1970's. It just kind of shows the worldwide impact of the show, and the number of famous people that were on there. Maybe I was just overthinking it. -- Ken (talk) 05:48, March 5, 2013 (UTC) Status? This has been in the sandbox for over a year. Can we move it to a real article, or if not, what can be done to make it better? -- Ken (talk) 03:05, 7 March 2009 (UTC) :No opposition here. —Scott (talk) 05:13, 15 March 2009 (UTC) ::What category should it go into? This page seems to be the opposite of Fictional Celebrities, and that page is in "Character Lists" and "Celebrities". Would those apply here? -- Ken (talk) 06:13, 16 March 2009 (UTC) :::It's closer to Category:Behind the Scenes or Connections (though it's really more directly relevant than most of the other items in the latter). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 06:35, 16 March 2009 (UTC) Electric Company? Would the Electric Company appearances count here? -- Ken (talk) 06:23, 30 November 2007 (UTC) :I would think so, but I'm not sure. And just to make sure, unnofficial appearances such as in Mad and Family Guy shouldn't count, right? --Minor muppetz 22:56, 5 December 2007 (UTC) ::Mad and Family Guy don't feature appearances by Muppet characters, but parodies of them. But I would say yes to Electric Company. —Scott (talk) 23:50, 5 December 2007 (UTC)